


First Response

by ArwenKenobi



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-09
Updated: 2012-04-20
Packaged: 2017-11-03 07:59:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/379131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArwenKenobi/pseuds/ArwenKenobi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times John had to perform first aid on Sherlock and one time Sherlock had to perform it on John</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> All treatment provided is correct according my my training and qualifications but under no circumstances should this fic replace proper first aid certification.

Sherlock has never met a man like John before. He has met doctors and he has met soldiers and he is fairly certain he has met an army doctor in some capacity before now. In everyday life, when he is not consumed by the work, they have either been irrelevant or dull to him. It is only when he finds himself facing them in a criminal context that he pays attention to them. A solider gone wrong is a terrible thing but a doctor gone criminal has the honour of being one of the very few things that truly make his blood run cold. It’s the military efficiency and the keen intellect. Being on the same side as both of those qualities and working toward a common goal is interesting. Interesting and fascinating and _neat_.

John’s therapist is an idiot. Everyone seems to know this, including John, but it is certain now. What PTSD sufferer would be able to live and work with him? What PTSD sufferer would be able to fire that shot and not be adversely affected afterwards? John clearly did not care that he’d killed a man. The fact that he wasn’t a ‘nice’ man was a helpful justification but Sherlock is certain that John would not have hesitated one second more than he had tonight if the person had been an otherwise decent human being. A threat had been made, Hope’s intent was certain, and John had neutralized him. End of discussion and no need for moral quandary. 

There is so much he wants to ask John. So much he wants to find out about this fascinating man who is his flatmate and friend (because what are friends if not people who would kill for you, or at least that’s what Sherlock has come to think). He waits until they’re back in the flat (why are they here? Weren’t they going for Chinese?) before he considers those questions and which to start with. John has instructed Sherlock to sit down in his chair and is making tea and what Sherlock suspects is toast. He’s shrugging out of his coat when he spies the blood on it.

Blood is nothing new to Sherlock. Having blood sprayed on him is not even unusual. What is unusual about tonight is that the blood has been sprayed on him from a living person who had been shot before his eyes. A shot that very well could have hit him had anyone come by and stopped John or distracted him. Or if he had moved. Or if Hope had moved. 

Sherlock is not typically fond of profanity. Or at least he hasn’t been since he’s been off the drugs. Nor is he prone to trembling. Despite this he finds himself shaking and muttering “oh fuck, fuck, jesus fucking.... _jesus_...”

He’d watched a man die tonight. He’d also watched one man kill another man tonight. The murderer is here in his flat. The murderer is here in his flat and is making him tea and fucking toast. 

What is happening here? What is happening here and what is happening to him? Or has happened already perhaps. The normal part of him is suggesting that he should be doing all kinds of notation and data analysis for his records. That he should be marking this and understanding what it happening. The majority of him, however, very much wants to run away and refuses to think of anything he normally would. He does not realise he has managed to wander to the door until he is trying, unsuccessfully, to open it. When he realises the door is locked he feels a blanket draped quietly over his shoulders. Firm hands rest on top of shoulders and blanket and spin him slowly around.

John holds him there. The grip is not tight but it is not loose enough that he can escape. This is far less soothing than it ought to be so he keeps shaking. Perhaps slightly harder than before but he is too busy fixing his gaze to the carpet and trying to even out his breathing to note the precise rate of change. He does know that if he keeps this up he is going to pass out.

“Sherlock, look at me.”

The voice is gentle but commanding. He looks up and watches John purse his lips and breathe in. He holds it until Sherlock does the same and then releases the breath, slowly. Sherlock does the same. They breathe together like this, in and out through pursed lips slowly and deliberately, until John stops and Sherlock does it alone a few more times. His head is clear, he can breathe, and he is only shaking a little bit.

“Come.” John lets go of his shoulders and takes one of his wrists. This grip is now loose enough to allow escape but Sherlock does not take advantage of it. “Have a sit and some tea.”

Sherlock shuffles to his chair and sits down. He eagerly takes the warm mug from the table and John wraps the blanket more tightly around him. Instead of sitting across from him in his own chair, John settles on the floor by the fireplace. He takes his own mug with him on the way down, blows across it once, and then sips. To the untrained eye John is savouring the heat of the fire (Mrs. Hudson’s doing certainly) and his tea (Earl Grey, black). Sherlock knows though, even without his keen eye and superior intellect, that John is watching him. Watching him to see him improve or deteriorate. If it were anyone else – and that would have included John a day or so ago – Sherlock would have barked at him the same way he had barked at Lestrade about the blanket and the concern. 

He knows not to insult John’s intelligence that way. Especially not after what he has done for him tonight. 

“I think I’m alright now,” he says after he’s eaten his half of the toast. He offers the rest to John, who has been abstaining.

John’s voice says ‘I’ll be the judge of that’ but his eyes and manner agree with him. He eats a piece of toast, sighs and says. “I’m not going to apologize for what I did and I’m not going to promise that I won’t do it again. If I see something like that again I will act on it unless otherwise ordered.”

Ordered. Odd choice of word. Well, Sherlock allows, it really isn’t. He doesn’t usually make requests of anyone now does he? “I’m hardly going to ask you to not save me.” It’s an attempt at a scoff but it comes out mumbled. John seems to understand it though. “Thank you for the warning though.”

John nods. He has questions, Sherlock knows. Questions about his health as well as his experience. He certainly knows the answers but he wants to hear them from Sherlock’s own lips. It’s a feeling that Sherlock can sympathise with so Sherlock asks first.

“Have you always been that good a shot?”

John laughs. It’s quiet and unintentional so he tries to suppress it. He mercifully gives up with a shake of his head. “Family legend is I chucked a toy at Harry once I was old enough to sit up because she was playing peek a boo. Hit her right between the eyes.” He chuckles again. “Everyone thought it was just luck until it happened a few more times – different objects but it was the same peek a boo game that set me off each time.”

He spins a few more tales. The best ones are about the terror he’d been as a child to anyone acting untoward ( _he wasn’t a nice man_ ). They make even Sherlock laugh. The image of a miniature John fighting injustice with a tricycle, a slingshot, and some marbles is too much but simply perfect all the same. It is an amusing story but it also is one meant to inspire safety. It’s meant to tell Sherlock that John may kill bad men when the time calls for it but that he is not one of them. He’s on the side of light and truth but deception and dark are not unknown to him. He knows how to use them just as well as Sherlock does.

Eventually John asks a few questions of his own and Sherlock, tea and blanket long finished with, obliges. 

When John calls this case A Study in Pink on his blog Sherlock almost asks him to rename it a study in something else entirely. That being said he likes the proper conclusion to that case being just between them.


	2. Two

“Could you stop eating everything in the flat?” John snaps from behind his laptop screen.

Sherlock does not have the good grace to even inhale between whatever he is shoveling into his mouth. John suspects it is either his cereal or that cake Mrs. Hudson had made them yesterday afternoon. It was a great chocolate thing. Three layers and John suspected that it was delicious but a) chocolate really wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed and b) he really felt partaking in cake was far too celebratory considering he and Sherlock had met Moriarty two nights ago and had only walked away from said meeting because the man had been offered something more entertaining than their deaths.

Sherlock had spent a day trying to figure out who that better offer had come from but had failed to do so. Then he had locked himself in his room and had refused to come out until this morning when he had demanded a full and proper breakfast. John had refused to do so as he had been roused rather violently in order to provide said breakfast. John had told Sherlock just as violently to sod off and the next time his eyes had opened he had smelt toast and bacon. He could hear Sherlock wolfing down the stuff like it was about to vanish before his eyes. 

Sherlock’s eating habits could constitute an entire chapter at least in the textbook that John could write on his habits. Traditionally Sherlock barely ate while on a case though he certainly drank enough tea. John actually had an emergency fund for tea set aside after the fallout from the Lawson robberies that followed the Blind Banker case. Sherlock had drunk all of his own tea and all of John’s Earl Grey and Sherlock absolutely loathed Earl Grey. Desperate times and all that but John is still shocked that Sherlock lowered himself to the level of the vile sludge that John drank by choice and not under extreme duress – Sherlock’s words not his obviously. Needless to say it was now of paramount importance that neither of them ran out of tea. 

You would suppose that Sherlock would just resume a normal (ish) eating schedule once a case ended if only to drive off boredom. This was in fact the minority of cases. Sherlock could binge eat like a champion when he wanted to; in fact John was fairly sure that eating contest record holders would have a challenge beating Sherlock in a certain stage of hunger or during a certain type of craving. He could both eat meals and snack constantly or he would fixate on one thing and that would be all he would eat before he got bored or sick or refused food again. Last time Sherlock had fixated on ham and cheese sandwiches and John had yet to see him touch either ham or cheese since that craving had run its course.

This go around it seems Sherlock is going for the eating constantly option. John is fine with this so long as there is food for him as well and he doesn’t have to go outside to get more. He was not going to admit to feeling any particular ill effects to the Pool Situation but going out on his own, or at least out on his own unarmed, is not his first choice of activities. Neither is eating particularly.

John is never riding a taxi again no matter how much Sherlock revolts about accepting lifts in police cars – at least when under his own power and with full mental acuity – or how over stimulated Sherlock can get on the Tube. John will walk before he sets foot in a cab unarmed again. He really should have just bolted the second the cabbie had pulled over and asked him if he’d wanted a lift. That might have helped matters eventually. That being said he had put up quite a fight in said cab, he distinctly remembers shattering a window, but no one had heard or reported anything. His opinion of the neighbourhood may never recover.

He also cannot help but be irked that Sherlock hadn’t just run when he’d told him to. Idiot didn’t care about anyone else but he cared about him. Endearing and comforting but also annoying. Hell, John has to admit eventually and regretfully, if positions had been reversed he wouldn’t have run either. He just needs to stop getting bloody kidnapped and one sure way to avoid a kidnapping is to not leave the flat. Despite how this all sounds if he were to speak it out loud he is not afraid to go outside; he just cannot be arsed to deal with another kidnapping. It has happened to him far too frequently and he is sure that word is going to spread that Sherlock will not leave him. He needs to mentally prepare for what he needs to be able and willing to do to ensure that neither of them is put in that position again before leaving the flat again.

John also would just like to spend a few days bonding with his chair and whatever telly Sherlock will put up with. Once he feels enough of that has gone on he can think about going down to Tesco’s to restock the kitchen.

He hears the toaster pop again and he can hear the bread snatched, still hot, within a millisecond and then the frantic sound of jam being scrapped onto it. “It’s not going to run away from you, Sherlock” John grumbles as he rolls his eyes and goes about poking at the blog entry that will someday be if he can ever get the stupid thing to flow properly. Right now it reads too much like the reports he used to give in the Army. Now if Sherlock wanted dull...

Sherlock starts coughing and sputtering and John can’t help but laugh. “That’ll teach you to eat my food,” he bellows into the kitchen. Sherlock shoots back something that John is sure is scathing and very Not Good but most of it is lost in the coughing. The coughing eventually stops but John closes his laptop, sets it aside, and stands up. There was something Very Not Good about the way that last cough had ended.

“Sherlock?”

He hears a crash and he rushes in. Sherlock is on his knees and he is clutching at his throat; his eyes are bulging and his lips are very close to turning blue. John distantly notes the toppled chair as Sherlock’s attempt to find a way to save himself as he hauls Sherlock up to his feet. Normally it is good practice to warn a choking victim about what is going to be done but John isn’t worrying about that right now. He reaches one arm across Sherlock’s chest and grabs his right shoulder tightly. He bends Sherlock over his arm until he’s as parallel to the floor as John can manage and firmly hits him between the shoulder blades with the heel of his free hand five times. Then he stands Sherlock back up, stands behind him, balls one hand into a fist, and delivers five abdominal thrusts under his ribcage.

He repeats this sequence four times. It happens in utter silence. 

He’s on thrust number two of the fifth cycle when something that looks like it had once been jam on toast pops out of Sherlock’s mouth and lands on the floor. Sherlock’s knees give out but John is stronger than he looks. He manages to hold him up and get him to the one upright chair in the room. Then he leaves Sherlock briefly to get him a glass of water, which his now breathing friend and flatmate takes gratefully and sips slowly. 

“Couldn’t have _eaten_ that slow could you?” That is both Not Good and Horrible Bed Side Manner but John does not care about either.

Sherlock does not reply to that. “I thought it was ill advised to strike a choking victim on the back.”

Trust Sherlock Holmes to be more concerned about the procedure. At least that means that he’s suffered no ill effects. “Not if it’s done in combination with the abdominal thrusts.” The ‘official’ guidelines as to procedure had changed a few months ago as they were wont to do but, really, when it came to severe obstructions you did whatever the hell worked. Had the fifth run through not worked he would have got Sherlock on the ground and done the thrusts that way. One way or another he would have had that out of him. 

Sherlock is looking at him strangely and John is about to ask if he’s okay when Sherlock says “Thank you again.”

“Again?”

“For saving my life, obviously.”

John is trying to remember the last time he actually did that when Sherlock waves his hand impatiently. “That...that thing that you were going to do at the pool. That. Never thanked you for it properly.”

“You didn’t have to then and you don’t have to now. For either of them.”

“Just doing your job, doctor?”

“Now you know that’s not true.” They both start and both look equally ill at John’s choice of words. “Not Good,” John apologizes as he shakes his head. “Very Not Good. How’s your throat?”

“Usable.”

“We should get that checked out properly.”

Sherlock looks at him. It’s not the usual “John, you idiot,” expression. It’s a much softer, much more amused version of the “Really, John?” look. He gets up and leaves the kitchen. He returns with John’s medical bag and a small torch.

He hands the items over. “I agree.” He sits back down, opens his mouth wide, and waits. John rights the other chair, sits down, and performs his examination.

When John declares Sherlock well he decides that he’s done enough eating for the day. He’s settled on the couch flipping through the papers when John looks over his laptop screen at him. “I didn’t actually save your life at the pool. So I’ve only saved your life this once what did you mean...”

The ‘John, you idiot’ expression is his response. At almost the same instant John remembers their first case and a shot that went through two windows and one cabbie. Remembers being back at the flat and telling stories and asking questions, getting to know each other properly before going to bed. Sherlock hadn’t been able to thank him then so he was lumping it all together now. Having a friend threatened in front of you, and having said friend attempt to die for you, certainly made some things clearer. John has firsthand experience with that. 

“Any time, Sherlock.”

The ‘John, you idiot’ expression is replaced by a barely noticeable smile. 


	3. Three

John keeps his work schedule pinned to the refrigerator door. He has another copy tacked on his bedroom door and he is meticulous about keeping both current. He believes Sherlock does not read or notice either of them but their existence at least gives John something to stab at and reference whenever Sherlock feigns ignorance of John’s shifts when he makes plans or requests his help.

The truth of the matter is that Sherlock does pay attention to both schedules. Close attention. He commits them to memory and marks the changes. He just ignores the information. He knows that John will always drop whatever he is doing in favour of working with him and John knows it as well. John always looks annoyed when he pencils in another shift and looks triumphant when he erases one. One day, Sherlock hopes, John will quit. One day the day will come when John feels comfortable quitting. One day some publisher will give John an offer for his stories and then John will quit. Sherlock has toyed with the idea of orchestrating that to happen sooner rather than later but long ago decided against it. John is smarter than he appears and smarter than he lets on; he will smell Sherlock’s hand in this just as fast as Mycroft would.

He is studying the schedule on the fridge now. It is covered with extra shifts that John has volunteered for and shifts that John has asked for. Some of these calls have happened blatantly in Sherlock’s presence and John has taken a sudden habit for constitutionals in Regent’s Park. John was almost never in the flat nowadays and whenever he was he kept out of sight, to himself, and only spoke to Sherlock when necessary. It was especially striking now that Sherlock was in between cases, bored out of his mind, and John was not even giving his weakest attempt to distract Sherlock from it. 

Sherlock cannot regret his actions at Baskerville but he does regret that his subject had to be John. Using Henry Knight would have killed the man and Sherlock had already known his own reaction. He could have explained something to John though, he has to admit now. The experiment needn’t have been a completely blind one. If he’d sketched the outline of his design he would have had a volunteer and far less of a situation on his hands than he had now.

He has infuriated John in countless other ways before now and he has always come around. This time it seems Sherlock had crossed a line that neither of them had known existed. Sherlock cannot be completely surprised. He had attempted to drug John and then he had manipulated his senses. He had sent him to a place so horrifying that if John hadn’t had PTSD before he certainly had hints of it now. He was not sleeping, he was incredibly restless, and was much more attuned to sudden noises and movements than he typically was. It was probably an attempt to curb that restlessness that he was out of the flat so frequently but he knew most of it was his anger at Sherlock for sending him back to this state. It really was a wonder that his limp hadn’t returned as well. 

Another aspect, one that Sherlock thinks that John is just now becoming aware of, is that John is infuriated that he’s been made visibly weak in front of Sherlock. That he’s regressed and he is right back to square one where Sherlock had first met him, or at least he sees it as such. It is so far from the truth that Sherlock doesn’t think John capable of ever seeing it. He’s retreating until he can face Sherlock again as the man he ‘was’ as much as he’s retreating because of his anger.

In any other human being Sherlock would dismiss their concerns and subsequent reactions as idiotic. The experiment had needed to be done, Sherlock had weighed the risks and had decided it was worth the danger and all was well. No need to be angry and no need to feel embarrassed at having a reaction to something that was intended to cause a reaction. 

There have been many things about himself that have changed or adapted since he met John. He has never felt the need to apologize for anything or make up for anything before. Not since he apologized to his Grandmère Vernet for taking apart his grandfather’s antique pocket watch. As he recalled he’d reassembled it with painstaking detail and even made it work. Then he’d asked Mummy to take it to an antique dealer to see if he could detect the repair work. That dealer had failed to notice and so had another six. 

When he had presented it to her Grandmère had hugged him, planted a kiss on his then light haired head, and forgiven him.

He cannot not take John apart and make him work. He cannot make the nightmares stop or make him feel at ease in his presence again. Well he believes he can do some of that but he absolutely cannot fix any of it while John feels the need to not be in his presence. 

Hypothesis: If he performs some act of contrition John will stay in the flat more often. Then he will have an opportunity to deal with the rest.

He cracks his knuckles and sets about doing one thing that he knows John will appreciate: having dinner ready when he gets home. Somewhere, the Sherlock from the pre-John world is laughing and scoffing but Sherlock manages to glare that part of him into nonexistence and sets about cleaning the kitchen. Soon enough the place is clean enough for John to perform open heart surgery on the table should the mood strike him. Sherlock means that quite literally. He is quite efficient at cleaning when he feels like doing it.

Risotto, Sherlock decides. Mushroom risotto for dinner. The last time John had tried to make this Sherlock had stolen all the mushrooms for an experiment. John hadn’t said anything and had just replaced them. Unfortunately a case had come their way and the things had been left to literally rot on the counter. John had not bothered getting any new ones after that. It probably had something to do with the fact that Sherlock had not let him clean up and had experimented on that rot for another week.

According to the fridge John’s shift ended at half six. That meant that John would be opening the door by seven. It is seven minutes past five. He has plenty of time. Cooking is also something Sherlock can be very good when the mood strikes him. Cooking his simply chemistry and Sherlock is as great a chemist as he is an investigator. Everything goes precisely according to plan and his timing is perfect. 

He has brought the stock to boil and is in the process of softening an onion when he hears the thump of John’s bag on the floor. Sherlock is seldom taken by surprise but he has not heard John’s presence in the flat so free and unguarded in some time that he starts before he can think to stop it. Unfortunately he starts violently enough to topple the pot of boiling water and boiling stock over and onto his left arm. He viciously throws the pot away from him even as he somehow manages to turn a scream into a lower, but still loud, snarl. He grabs the arm and instinctually brings the arm close to his body as if that act can make the pain go away along with the blisters he can feel forming but has no desire to see. 

He’s trying to control his breathing because if he doesn’t he knows he is going to scream properly. He manages to keep it to a growl when he fails. John is asking after him with growing insistency but he can’t answer him. He has only suffered chemical burn once and it was very superficial and it had felt nothing like this.

He’s hauled to his feet with a strength that leaves no room for argument or resistance. He’s ordered to move his feet and he does when he hears the blessed sound gently rushing water from the sink. He offers his arm as much as John moves it to the light spray. He first hisses with pain but eventually sighs with relief. He shuts his eyes and allows the sensation to wash over him.

“Are you alright?” This must be the fourth time that John’s asked him this question. 

“What do you think?” Sherlock forces out.

“Well enough to say that,” John deadpans back at him. “Come on, have a sit while I bandage this.”

Sherlock takes a seat and takes a moment to regard the injury. Where there are blisters it is certainly nasty but none have broken and the area is small enough that a call to the paramedics is not required. John will no doubt insist on going to A&E anyway. “It really is quite superficial,” Sherlock reports as John rips open some sterile bandages and covers his arm with them. 

“You’re bloody lucky,” John mutters as he presses them down gently. “What the hell were you doing?”

Sherlock cannot stop his eyebrow from rising. “You know my methods –“

“Finish that sentence and I will give you third degree burns,” John promises harshly. “You were making dinner – “

“Specifics, John.”

“Making dinner for us – “

“For you. Again, specifics.”

“Why?”

This should be obvious. This should be so obvious that John should be knocked off his feet and into the sitting room with the force of how obvious it all is. He looks at John in what he hopes is a decent mask of contempt to hide his shock and disappointment but the mask falters when he sees John’s oblivious mask failing to cover his cautious knowing and ashamed understanding. He knows and understands but he questions his conclusions. He doesn’t want to hope for Sherlock trying to set things right since hoping for that means that he is responsible for what carnage there is before him. 

“Not your fault.” He ignores John’s glare. “I thought you would be home at seven.” He’d read the schedule wrong. That is disconcerting but not altogether surprising all things considering. 

Everything clicks into place for John and he lets out a soft ‘ah’ in understanding. Thankfully he chooses to not mention the fact that he now knows for certain that Sherlock reads his work schedule. “Why were you making dinner anyway though?”

John knows why but he wants Sherlock to say it. For anyone else Sherlock would keep silent but he finds himself easily admitting his reasons. John sighs and his hand reaches out to squeeze his shoulder quickly. “I wasn’t angry.”

Sherlock laughs at that and winces a little at the movement. “Of course you were. You had every reason to be. Just like you have every reason to be affected by what I did and no reason to hide the effects of said blunder from me. Seeing that would have made me understand sooner and I would have acted before now.”

John opens his mouth, closes it, and then opens it again. Sherlock adds one more thing before John can collect himself: he tells him that he can’t atone for what he’s done if John is never here.

That hits a chord with John, a chord that he had not meant to hit. He knows what Harry and the rest of his family had said in response to his decision to enlist and he knows what Harry continually accuses him of when he refuses to answer her calls or ring her himself. Sherlock doesn’t know what to say and John holds his hand up to stop him. “It’s alright.” His voice is slightly strangled but it is firm. “I needed to hear that.” He is silent for two minutes before he says that they have both been proper idiots about the whole thing.

John could never be a proper idiot if he tried but Sherlock keeps that to himself. John will not accept it. Instead he offers the hand of his non burnt arm and apologizes, properly, for his actions at Baskerville. John takes it and apologizes for withdrawing so completely. Five minutes later they’re off to A&E because John insists and Sherlock decides now would not be a good time to argue against a second opinion.

The next day everything is as it had been before Baskerville. Sherlock is madly trying to figure out how best to play violin with only one good arm and John is attempting to read a novel between outbursts. Between the two of them, eventually, Sherlock can play though John’s fingering could do with some work.

The schedules on the fridge and John’s bedroom door have significantly fewer shifts on them now . 


	4. Four

The man he is chasing looks like Moriarty.

John knows full well that Moriarty is behind bars awaiting trial. He also knows full well that the only reason that Moriarty is in prison at all is because he wants to be. He very well could have decided prison life was dull and left earlier today for all they knew. Sometimes John wonders if the Moriarty in prison is actually Moriarty at all since he is still giving them so much trouble. Almost every case that he and Sherlock have touched since the break ins have had Moriarty’s watermark just visible behind the acts. 

Break ins have been a running theme since Moriarty’s arrest. Grand theft, simple robbery, identity theft, anything that can be stolen has been stolen in the past few weeks. The trial is next week and it seems this latest string of corporate theft is the _pièce de resistance_ before the circus that is sure to be. The latest updates to four major security companies’ software have vanished without a trace but, finally, whomever Moriarty has doing his dirty work has stumbled. Sherlock and he hadn’t slept last night in preparation for tonight’s stakeout. John had been stationed with Lestrade at the outside the man’s flat while Sherlock and one of Mycroft’s cronies are lurking up on the roof somewhere. At least that is where John believes he is. Sherlock very well could have told him anything for the sake of this chase.

They have had discussions about this, about misleading John for the sake of a case. He understands Sherlock’s reasoning and even admits that it is sometimes necessary. John is the first to admit that there is plenty of room for improvement when it comes to his acting abilities but he is better at it than Sherlock thinks. Mycroft has even said this. “At the very least you can tell me beforehand that you’re going to lie to me,” John has said to him more than once. Sherlock’s answer has always been the same: what would be the point of that?

It’s not a battle that is going to have any conclusion any time soon. When it does it is going to be because of something major and they might well come to blows over it. All John can do is to continue to voice his objections and be ready to literally beat his point of view into Sherlock when the time comes.

He had not been lying to Sherlock about having killed people as an army doctor. He knows that Sherlock knows that but he thinks Sherlock tries to forget it. Or he has chosen to ignore it.

John is not out for blood, not yet anyway, but he is running like he is. Lestrade is shouting somewhere in the distance but John is not going to stop. The man is gone and he knows what his role in this is: get the man and bring him back. John is armed but he’s not to resort to that unless he has to; the software has been found but the police want to talk to him anyway.

John is not a sprinter but he is good over long distances and has become better at it since making Sherlock’s acquaintance. The Moriarty look alike is slowing down and John is gaining. He quickly closes the distance between them and tackles the man with a move that would have made his old rugby coach stand up and cheer. It is painful for them both but much more so for the criminal John thinks with satisfaction until Moriarty 2.0 throws him off. John is reminded of being blown back from explosions while in Afghanistan but all he can think is _this really, really, hurts_ when his head hits the pavement with a crack. Part of John acknowledges that he’ll have to be looked at after this is over but for the moment he swears and shuts his eyes. He needs a moment to focus himself but he doesn’t get more than a few seconds before not-Moriarty is on him and John is forced to try and keep this man from cutting him apart with a switchblade when John can barely see said switchblade.

That problem is remedied when he hears feet slamming on pavement and watches as a black blur that has to be Sherlock leaps over him and gives another cheer worthy tackle to the Moriarty clone. John sits up and shuts his eyes as he hears the battle go on. He knows that he should be right there in the thick of it with his friend but he is relieved for the break. He can’t see straight enough to stand at present.

His vision sharpens just as he hears a strangled inhale. It’s a blur as he stands, draws his gun, and shoots their quarry dead with a single shot to the back of the neck. Most people wouldn’t know what a stabbing victim sounds like but John, unfortunately, has heard it plenty of times both at home and abroad. John also knows, or has imagined, exactly what noise Sherlock makes at every single possible injury.

Sherlock is still lying flat on his back, gritting his teeth and making short gasping noises instead of screaming his head off or swearing. Sherlock Holmes will not lower himself to the cathartic feeling of bout of foul language or a proper scream if he can avoid it and that knowledge at least tells John that it could be worse. The switchblade is lodged in his chest on his left side. Punctured lung for sure, John’s ears tell him. John’s eyes and hands tell him seconds later that the knife is the only thing allowing Sherlock to breathe at all. There is no way that knife is coming out here and now regardless of that fact but properly stabilizing the blade becomes even more important. 

He pulls off his jumper, bunches it up, and presses it into Sherlock’s waiting hands. Sherlock may not know enough about a lot of so called boring things but he is making room in that hard drive for the basic first aid skills that John has been teaching him. The reflexive reaction of anyone would be to pull the knife out but Sherlock has held his hand. Also the best way to keep Sherlock talking and conscious and calm is to keep him involved. “Hold that tight,” John orders. “Mind the blade.”

“Obviously” is the gasped reply as the order is obeyed. John tears his shirt off, buttons scattering down the street, and begins ripping it into strips as Sherlock feebly grabs his mobile with one hand and texts Lestrade with shaking, bloody, fingers. 

“Do you text Lestrade because you don’t want to actually speak to 999?” John loops the end of one strip around his fingers, makes the loop small enough to fit snuggly over the blade, and starts threading the rest of the strip in and around until he has a tight ring. He slips it over the blade and then reaches for the other strips he’s made.

“This is faster,” Sherlock assures him. “Police request paramedics and the response time is faster.”

John wants to argue that the response time is probably only better by a factor of seconds, maybe a minute or two tops, but quickly diverts Sherlock’s attention to taking account of the rest of him. Sherlock reports that nothing else hurts, or at least he doesn’t feel anything else that hurts, and that his pulse and respiration are slightly elevated. John knows all this already but Sherlock starts spitting numbers at him and he files them away to tell the paramedics once they arrive. He bandages the wound as best he can. He then takes one of Sherlock’s wrists away from its duty of applying pressure and shuffles up to his head. 

“I already told you my pulse rate.” Sherlock’s voice is only now starting slur and slow and pained. His eyes are open and his gaze is focussed but he’s certainly heading swiftly to semi conscious territory. When his one handed grip on John’s bloody jumper starts to falter John presses his free hand on until Sherlock gasps with the pain. 

“Forgive me for doubting your numbers at a time like this.” He frowns when he realises that Sherlock’s calculations are correct and Sherlock smiles at him. He mouths ‘told you’ and his fingers curl around John’s wrist.

John gets through a quick body check, no bleeding anywhere else and nothing beyond a few bumps and scrapes, before the paramedics arrive. He is allowed to ride in the ambulance without questions and forgets that he has been wearing nothing but a worn, white t-shirt, until the orange shock blanket is wrapped around him.

Sherlock keeps a keen eye on John until John tells him to relax. If Sherlock hasn’t taken a turn for the worse yet he is certainly not going to now and he has more than enough back up in here should anything go wrong. Sherlock wakes up again just before he is taken into surgery. “I’ll be here when you get back.” It’s a needless promise but Sherlock only nods in reply. If Sherlock were to wake and not find John reading his chart or napping in the seat next to him he would assume the worst. John would assume the same now. Early into the partnership he’d never expect to have Sherlock put a case on hold while he was on the mend but the first time that he had been hospitalized Sherlock had haunted his room until he’d opened his eyes and then was never seen without him until he was finally released.

John has not had an opportunity to return to favour and has counted himself lucky for it. He allows himself to be checked out only because he knows he’ll be out of that quick enough and will be able to talk to Lestrade during this. Lestrade had taken the liberty to pop over to Baker Street to grab him a new jumper. He pulls it on gratefully as he gives his statement and is dismissed with directions to take it easy for the next day or two. It’s a direction is sure he can follow at least for the duration of Sherlock’s hospital stay.

He beats Sherlock to his room and once he sees Sherlock settled he decides he is more than allowed a bit of a kip. He is not sure precisely how many hours he gets but the sun is shining when he feels two fingers pressed to his wrist. It seems that John had reached out at some point in the night to press his own index and middle fingers on Sherlock’s wrist and Sherlock is now returning the favour.

“Seventy five,” Sherlock reports. “Mine is seventy three at the moment if you lost count.”

John doesn’t think that his reason had been to keep count and Sherlock knows it but John plays along. “Where were you this time?”

“Exactly where I said I was.”

“No you weren’t because there was no way you could have arrived to help me if you were.” John is not the faster of the two of them but he certainly had distance on his side since Sherlock would have had to fly off the roof and down the stairs to get there as fast as he did. Unless...

“Ah. You ran across the roof tops.”

“Obviously.”

“If you jumped off that roof I will kill you.”

“Wouldn’t that be counterproductive?” Sherlock raises an eyebrow. “I did not leap off the roof and onto the late Mr. Kingsley. I jumped across roofs until I was on one that I could get down from safely.”

Somewhere there should be a discussion about how jumping off roofs is never a good idea and never mind that Sherlock knows the precise height that a human can jump from a height and live. “Pity your calculations weren’t quite as accurate here.”

“I am human, John.” It’s meant as something light and sarcastic but there is a serious undertone to it. It’s the shadow of the voice Sherlock had used when he had told him to not believe in heroes. It’s also the shadow of the voice that had said his name that night at the pool and countless other times where he has been in danger, when he’s been angry at him, or whenever things do not go precisely to plan. 

John knows more than anyone alive, with the exception of perhaps Lestrade and Mycroft, just how human Sherlock is. He has been trusted with that fact, with that weakness, and he is not about to betray it now by telling Sherlock that he knows that full well. Sherlock makes mistakes like everyone else and he feels just as deeply as the next person. He just has no comprehension of these feelings and no clue what to do with them or how to express them properly if at all. 

He may be the most human person that he has ever known but he can’t tell him that. There are just some truths that Sherlock cannot digest. Or some truths that Sherlock will not accept and John thinks this truth might be in both categories. So John tells him the blood had rather given him away on that front. 

John does say the words eventually but they’re said to marble gravestone and the act of saying them feels like is ripping out his heart one piece at a time and setting it alight. He does not think he will be capable of feeling anything ever again. 

He does not speak for weeks after the fact. 


	5. Five

After Sherlock died John had felt like he’d fallen into a universe where he had never met the man. It felt like he had just returned from abroad and he was haunting his flat and talking to no one again. His hand tremor had appeared again but his limp had remained stubbornly absent as if to assure him that Sherlock Holmes had existed and that there was a reason for how much he hurt. As alone and lost as he had felt this sense of Sherlock never having existed, or of never having met him, only persisted when he was alone. John kept to himself mostly but whenever he spoke to Lestrade, and whenever his leg refused to limp, he knew what universe he was in. Was he the better for knowing that? That was a subject up for debate.

Living in a world without Sherlock Holmes was like living without sight and hearing. Everything around him was dimmer and muffled and nothing he could do, and John admits doing some very stupid things, could bring his world back into focus again.

Now his focus is back. His focus has been back for two weeks (two weeks and one day to be precise) but he is more uncertain as to which universe he’s in then he ever had been before. He’s either in the universe where Sherlock Holmes died and came back or the universe where he had never jumped in the first place. Or, and this is the one that John fears the most, he really belongs in the universe where Sherlock died and stayed dead and this is all a vivid dream or complex hallucination.

If that is truly what has happened he never wants to be roused or cured, he thinks as he watches Sherlock living and breathing and eyeballing the spread of baked goods on the table. John is surprised that they’ve lasted this long but Sherlock appears delighted. Their first case together since his return has ended and it seems that Sherlock’s post-case eating pattern this time is going to be baked goods and nothing else.

“Why do people insist on giving baked goods at funerals?” Sherlock asks him as he helps himself to a brownie. “Do they think that everything will get better if they get fatter?”

“It’s comfort food, Sherlock. It’s supposed to make you feel better.” He had not wanted to feel better so he’d shoved it all in the freezer because he could not be cold blooded or wasteful enough to throw it all out. Summoning any strong emotion other than sadness and loss had been difficult in the early days. He had forgotten all about it until Sherlock had pulled it all out last night in search for a corner of the freezer to stash his first experiment since his return.

“Never been the type for that sort of relief, have you John?” There is a deliberate pause there and a questioning, careful glance fixed on him. 

John ignores it; he is not discussing the Sebastian Moran situation with Sherlock. He has not yet earned that privilege and Sherlock knows it but he is of course going to keep at him until he relents. John knows he will and that will be when he knows he has truly forgiven Sherlock for the past year and Sherlock knows it. His actions have always announced his intentions and his feelings before his head and heart catch on. This also is something Sherlock knows full well so he has not been forcing the issue as much as he could. 

That is something new for Sherlock. Sherlock is not the type to treat anyone like glass nor is John one to allow anyone to treat him so. He hadn’t tolerated it from Harry when he’d come back from abroad and he’d blown up at Mrs. Hudson when she’d suggested that he was more of the sitting type on the day that he’d met her. Sherlock treats him differently but the same all at once. He’s a bit calmer, a bit gentler, while at the same time just as frustratingly mad as he always has been. John cannot put his finger on it but judging by the way that he has sometimes caught Sherlock looking at him he must be a bit different as well.

Death changes you. You never are the same person you were before. You just adapt and change to the hole in your life and that’s how you learn to get on without them. At least that’s how it’s supposed to go. John has to admit that he had not exactly done that in a productive way and now he has to change again because Sherlock is not dead after all. That being said being dead has to change a man as well. Sometimes Sherlock forgets he is a part of the world now and sometimes he does not even respond to his name until the second or third time he’s called.

They’ll get back into it and they’ll be the stronger for it. John has no doubt of that. 

He sits down and helps himself to whatever variation of biscuit is closest to him. He gets up and spits it out into the sink after the first bite. Sherlock looks at him with concern and picks up the abandoned biscuit and takes a small bite of it. He’s not sure whether Sherlock actually wants to see if it is actually awful or just not to John’s liking (it’s the latter). Really he’s probably just delighted that there is a whole plate of baked goods that John will now not touch.

John almost laughs as he sees the look of horror on Sherlock’s face but he feels his blood freeze in his veins as he learns something new about Sherlock Holmes: that he is deadly allergic to peanuts. 

The anaphylactic reaction is sudden and unforgiving and Sherlock is on the floor leaning against the fridge trying, unsuccessfully, to get air through his swollen throat and lips in what seems like milliseconds. For a few moments all John can see is a bloodied corpse in front of St. Bart’s after a fall from a roof. He sharply reminds himself that he can do something here and that there is no stupid kid on a bicycle to slow him down and no crowd of people to keep him back.

Sherlock is barely moving when John kneels beside him and grabs his shoulders. Disorientation, nausea, decreased level of consciousness is all starting right back at him but Sherlock’s eyes also tell him that he knows what’s going on and not because he’s familiar with what an anaphylactic reaction is. He knows what’s going on because it has happened to him before.

“EpiPen.” He hasn’t snapped an order so hard that he can feel the lash of them since Moran. The force of his voice almost brings Sherlock back to full awareness. “Do you have an EpiPen?” 

Sherlock fist is balled up and is repeatedly trying to jab an imaginary EpiPen into his thigh. “I know you have one!” John snaps. He would have liked to have known that Sherlock was allergic to peanuts before now but he can touch that anger later. “Where is it? Where is it you bloody idiot?”

Sherlock gestures somewhere upstairs and John knows that it has to be his bedroom. He’s wheezing only barely now but he lifts his hand and pretends to write. Desk, John determines. It’s on or in his desk somewhere. Of course it would be in that rubbish tip, where the hell else would it be?

“Don’t you even dare to think about dying on me,” John snarls as he snatches Sherlock’s mobile out of his pocket. “If I come back and you’re not breathing be prepared for a very painful field tracheotomy.” He does not wait to see Sherlock’s nod as he bounds up the stairs while simultaneously dialing 999. When he enters Sherlock’s room he is telling the man on the other end Sherlock’s state at the moment and that he is attempting to find the victim’s medication.

The victim. He shakes his head to clear the word out of his head and the image of a dead and bloody Sherlock on a stretcher out of his head. He is not going back there. He is not going back to the universe where Sherlock Holmes had died, he vows furiously as he tears apart Sherlock’s desk. He is not going to be a part of the universe where Sherlock Holmes came back from death only to die again either.

He spies the thing sitting in a mug full of pens and hopes and prays as he leaps from landing to floor like a five year old on a dare that Sherlock will be able to mock him for not catching on sooner. His legs scream in fury at such treatment but he gets up. Sherlock’s eyes are closed but his fingers are moving in some tapping motion. Fingering, he’s fingering some violin piece playing in his head. Good man. 

His eyes open and he gasps in surprise and relief when John drives the needle into Sherlock’s right thigh as hard as he can. He keeps it there for ten seconds then pulls it out and massages the area with his fingers. “Do you have a second one?” John demands. He’d left the mobile upstairs when he’d found the EpiPen so he has no idea what the ambulance’s ETA is. Injectors like this are not miracle cures, they buy time until the victim can be taken to hospital.

_Stop using that word!_ He growls mentally. _Stop it, stop it, stop it!_

Sherlock tells him that he only has the one and John tries his very best not to punch him. He can do that later for doing this to him. Again. Mercifully the paramedics come before the one dose wears off and they’re off to the hospital. Once they arrive John calls Mrs. Hudson and asks her to bin the biscuits and everything else that had been on the counter. He thanks her profusely when she reports to have already done so and some of Mycroft’s men have already disinfected the kitchen. “He’s also dropped off some more EpiPens. Just in case and all that.”

“Did you know he was allergic?” he asks. He can’t help being relieved when she says she hadn’t. The relief vanishes when Mrs. Hudson tells him that the only reason that she’d never brought peanut butter anything into the flat was because she knew John hated it. 

Sherlock has lasted this long by being alone and by virtue of the fact that his one close friend hates peanuts in any form. It is almost laughable and he hangs up on Mrs. Hudson before he can start. He masters himself before he walks back into join Sherlock and the doctor. It is three and a half hours before they’re told they can go home. Sherlock’s lips are still a bit swollen but he looks worlds better than he had been.

Sherlock’s outside failing to hail a cab as if nothing had happened when it hits John properly. All the grief and pain that he had refused to deal with for well over a year, that he had set aside once he’d found out about Moran and once Sherlock had come back to him, hits him with a force that nearly brings him to his knees. There’s a shadowed doorway just behind them and he fades into it. He just needs five minutes to get himself together, he assures himself as he falls to his knees and he has to measure his breath. Just five minutes.

“John?”

He can’t answer and he won’t answer but he hadn’t chosen a very cunning hiding spot. When Sherlock gets down on his own knees and leans in close, hands on his shaking shoulders, John covers his mouth and turns his face away. He hasn’t brushed his teeth or anything since before and his breath must reek of the stuff.

His hand is pulled away and his head is pulled back. “The smell doesn’t set me off. I need to ingest it for anything to happen.”

“ _Then why the fucking hell did you eat it, Sherlock?_ ” John hisses in between sharp breaths. “ _Why the hell did you never find the time to tell me about this_?!”

“I’ve never had to worry about it.” Sherlock confirms what John already knew about how he’d avoided disaster until now. “As to why I ate it, I thought something was wrong with it and I wanted to see what it was.”

John is so far beyond incredulous he can hardly see it. “You know I hate peanut butter, Sherlock!” He had to have known that was why he’d spat the ruddy thing out. Sherlock stops and shifts uncomfortably. “That didn’t matter at the time. Those baked goods were old, from my funeral, and I thought that maybe...even though I was dead that just maybe...”

That just maybe someone had been out to get him anyway. That Moran had decided to poison him via baking instead of shooting him down. John cannot help but laugh and doesn’t stop despite Sherlock’s harsh orders to stop it. “You know as well as I do that that wasn’t Moran’s style.”

Sherlock shrugs half heartedly and sits down properly against the door and John follows suit against the doorframe. He pulls his knees up and Sherlock proceeds to rest his arm on them. “I cannot fix what I have done to you if you are not here.” Sherlock has said something like this to him before but this time there’s an underlying vulnerability. That Sherlock is just as terrified of losing John as John is of losing him.

Obvious really. Sherlock had faked his own death to save him. He would have jumped to save him even if he had had to die for real. Taking a nip out of a peanut butter biscuit to taste for traces of poison would be a small price to pay and he trusted John to save him. He’d said as much when he’d fought and failed to get John to treat him instead of the other doctor.

John wraps a hand around Sherlock’s forearm. “I have to let you fix me first though, don’t I?”

Sherlock doesn’t look at him. He keeps his eyes fixed firmly ahead at the road. Cars pass and people walk on all without noticing this life changing event happening in the shadows.

“I have a story to tell you,” John begins after a time. “But first I want your promise that you’ll never do anything so stupid again without letting me in on your plans. I can act better than you think. Also, for the love of my sanity if nothing else, do you have any other medical conditions that I need to know about?”

When Sherlock promises to never leave him in the dark on cases again and assures him that the peanut allergy is all that John has to concern himself with, John tells him about Moran. How he did his research and figured out who had had a gun on him that day. His efforts and actions had not only killed Moran (a life for a life as John saw it. Still saw it in spite of it all) but had allowed for Sherlock to come home ahead of schedule. He could have been gone for another year or more had John not done what he’d done. The idea terrifies him on levels he had never even considered before. He doesn’t want to remember what his plans had been for after killing Moran. He doesn’t want to admit to Sherlock what might have happened had he arrived a few days later. He knows that Sherlock knows though; he doesn’t need to feel Sherlock’s previously unnoticed grip tighten on his arm.

And with that story concluded he realises he has forgiven Sherlock. He really, he has to admit to himself, had forgiven Sherlock for everything the second he’d seen him walk through the door alive. He tells Sherlock so and apologizes for making him wait so long to hear it. 

Sherlock’s eyes tell him how moved and pleased he actually is but he shrugs him off. After a moment he says that it was worth the wait to get John back. John raises an eyebrow, confused, and Sherlock smirks slightly in reply. “Do you know which universe you’re in now?”

John does. He is in the universe where Sherlock Holmes faked his own death to protect his friends, because that’s what friends do, and where John Watson had done his part to bring him home early, however unknowingly, by ridding the world of one Sebastian Moran. He was a part of the universe where he and Sherlock were a team no matter who was dead and who was alive. Or who was playing at either.

He’ll be damned if he ever leaves it without a fight.


	6. Plus One

The average human being can hold their breath for two minutes before reflexively inhaling and for three minutes before passing out. John has been under water for three minutes, five seconds. He is certainly unconscious and has reflexively inhaled by now. Science and biology do not lie but Sherlock cannot accept that fact. It is not the first time this has crossed his mind since meeting the man he had seen bound, weighted, and tossed off a bridge into the river below three minutes and ten seconds ago but it is a law of his universe that he will believe John above such laws until the evidence is before his eyes.

He does not want to see this evidence. He never does want to see the proof that John is as human as anyone else, as mortal as anyone else, but he tears off his coat and dives into the frigid water without a thought to the fleeing Foster brothers because another law of Sherlock’s universe is that there is no universe without John. 

John had managed to get himself mostly free before he’d lost consciousness. It’s only his legs that are still bound to the bricks and Sherlock refuses to allow the word ‘succumb’ to enter his thoughts. All this effort though had wasted oxygen and John had to have known that. A man other than Sherlock Holmes would assume panic but Sherlock knows John had been clear headed; he never would have made it so far had he not been. 

John is hunched over, hands floating over his bound feet, so his face is hidden from Sherlock’s sight by the shadows in the water. All well and good for his sanity, Sherlock has to think. He brings out the switchblade he’d taken off the younger Foster and cuts John free from his bonds. He fists John’s jacket with one hand and swims them both to surface and toward river bank with a speed he had not thought possible. He can see Lestrade in this distance and bellows for him to call 999. 

**_You should get defibrillator too if you want my chance of survival to be fifty percent and not twenty five._ **

He throws that order out as well even though he knows that there is nowhere for one to be found. As he drags John and himself onto shore he can see that Lestrade has already vanished in search of service for his mobile. The paramedics will come with one for certain but he knows, he knows because John has taught him, that early is always best and the paramedics will take at least six minutes to get out here.

**_CPR, Sherlock. Twenty five is better than zero._ **

He has seen John save someone with CPR before. They had been climbing an electrical fence and the suspect had reactivated the thing just before one of Lestrade’s new recruits could clear it. John had been the one to hold Lestrade back until Sherlock and another Yarder had deactivated the fence and apprehended their murderer. When Sherlock had returned he’d found Lestrade attempting to direct the paramedics to their location while John breathed into the fallen man and pumped his chest. Thirty compressions in the centre of the chest followed by two breaths were given seven times before the man had thrown up and had started breathing on his own again. Sherlock had found himself supporting a much relieved Lestrade while John did as much good as he could. He’d been smiling brightly, Sherlock remembered. John had been in his element and had triumphed. The sense of victory was the same as the one Sherlock felt after he solved a puzzle.

John had taught him CPR that night at Sherlock’s request and John had obliged despite his exhaustion and aching shoulder. They hadn’t touched that gap in Sherlock’s growing first aid knowledge simply because neither of them wanted to contemplate a situation in which it would have to be done. John had already faced it six months ago but hadn’t been allowed near him. John had also threatened him with a field tracheotomy when he’d suffered an anaphylactic reaction four months ago and Sherlock had not doubted him.

Sherlock had refused to contemplate any situation that John would need his help like this. John had never stopped breathing on him before. The worst injuries that John had sustained at his side had never resulted in his breathing stopping. They had tried but John had always, stubbornly, even while unconscious, kept breathing.

For the first time since seeing John’s determined but worried face vanish over the side of a bridge Sherlock looks at his friend. His skin is pale and waxy, his lips are a faint blue, and he very much looks like a corpse. It is the most terrifying sight of his entire life. 

“John,” he whispers. “I don’t know what to do.” This is the most terrifying sight of his life and this is the most terrifying admission of his life.

**Yes you do. Breaths first in this instance, remember.**

_I can’t do this._

**Yes you can. I taught you, I trust you and I believe in you. Open the airway then two slow breaths.**

He grabs John’s face with renewed determination and opens his airway with a bit more force than necessary. Both breaths go in without resistance. When he places his hands, one on top of the other, on John’s chest he can almost see John’s hands over top of his and when he looks across from him he sees the John looking at him.

**_Thirty compressions. Keep a quick rhythm but make sure you let my chest recoil._ **

Sherlock locks his fingers and sets that metronome in his head. He counts off as he pumps John’s heart, pushing hard and fast but giving John’s chest enough time to come back. He finishes those and breathes into John again. Brain damage can happen after four minutes without oxygen and refuses to allow his brain to tell him exactly how long it has been since John took a breath before Sherlock gave him one. John’s voice in his head tells him he’s doing fine.

“If I’m doing so well,” he grunts breathlessly in between compressions. “Why aren’t you waking up?”

_Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen_

“Don’t you leave me, John.”

_Twenty, twenty one, twenty two_

**_I’m not leaving you no matter what happens_ **

_Being a part of my mind palace does not count. You’re already there and you always will be. I want you_ with _me._

**_As I said, I’m not leaving you_ **

He finishes the compressions and breathes for John again. Lestrade comes running down the hill and asks if he wants a hand. Sherlock doesn’t answer him as he breathes into John again and starts a third set of compressions. “Breathe, John.” He means it to sound much nastier than it does – he is doing what he should and John does not have the decency to respond. The desperation in his voice would be understood by even Anderson had he been here. “Just breathe.”

Another set of compressions, two more breaths. He lets Lestrade take over the compressions for the next set because he fears he may crack more of John’s ribs than he already has. “Please,” he whispers into John’s ear as Lestrade starts the fifth cycle of compressions. “Please.” He has no other words. He takes to resting his head on John’s forehand and wishing (he refuses to call it praying) for John to keep fighting. 

“Please breathe, John. Please.”

Lestrade is four compressions into cycle number six when John starts spitting up water. Lestrade and him turn John onto his side and Sherlock watches like a hawk as John forces all the water from his lungs. When that coughing turns into actual, shuddering, breaths Sherlock allows himself to shake, allows himself to feel chill of the water and the air. Lestrade says something but it takes a few moments after he hears his footsteps disappear into the distance for Sherlock to realise that he’s gone to update the paramedics and direct them over here.

“John?” he shudders through both cold and uncertainty.

John’s eyes slowly open. They are clear, aware, and tired. He starts to shiver and it takes him a millisecond more than it ought to inhale. “Yeah?” he manages to get out.

It probably isn’t a good thing for Sherlock to haul John up off the ground and into his arms but he really doesn’t care. He can always claim he was trying to warm them both up but that’s a small, small part of the reason why he holds John so tight to him. John, who up until two minutes ago had been dead under his hands, hugs him back as tight as he is able. “ S’alright,” he tells Sherlock, voice a little steadier but still weak. “S’alright. M’alright.”

“You came back.” Sherlock doesn’t add the ‘to me’ but it’s there between them as obvious as a smoking gun. John tells him that he would never leave him alone like that without a fight.

“You did also ask very nicely.”

Sherlock knows his expression must be wonderfully comical for John to laugh like this but the paramedics arrive and bundle them both up before he can comment on what clinically dead men can and can’t hear. He wraps the shock blanket around himself gratefully and does his best to not down the warm tea in one gulp. John is being forced to lie down on a stretcher and be monitored properly and he is none too impressed about that.

They’re separated at the hospital – John is headed off to a proper examination of his head and lungs and Sherlock is off for a change of clothes and a measure of how much he has been affected by the cold and the shock. It’s all a bit silly really; John hadn’t started to shiver until he’d started to breathe again and Sherlock had been far too busy to notice or suffer any effects. They hadn’t been out in the cold for more than ten minutes.

His brain informs him that John had not been breathing for most of those minutes. There could be some damage involved there. His better sense tells him that it can’t be anything too debilitating considering his quick answers to the simple questions in the ambulance and he was steady enough on his feet. Lestrade stops him from bolting out of the exam room. “Where did you come from?” he demands to cover his annoyance at being taken by surprise. 

“From Baker Street,” he hands Sherlock a plastic bag. “I reckoned both you and John would prefer your own clothes to hospital gowns. You’re free to go, yeah?” The doctor, who looks equally as stunned to find a detective inspector in her exam room without her noticing, nods and only adds that he should be on the lookout for a cold. She only leaves the room when Sherlock pulls off the hospital gown and starts changing. Lestrade huffs in disguised amusement and averts his eyes. “Room 2703,” he tells him. “They want to keep him overnight just to be safe but he’s just fine.”

Sherlock buttons up his shirt and waits for Lestrade to realise that he’s stopped moving. Once he does and is looking at him Sherlock nods. Lestrade nods back and holds out a hand. “I did my best to look after him while you were gone,” Lestrade tells him. “I know I didn’t help much there but I did what I could. Same practice here.”

“It helped here.” It has been a long, hard battle to admit that John had been beyond anyone’s help for the year he had been dead. Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, and his brother had tried but John had closed himself off. He’d come back once he’d learned about Moran but once Moran had been dealt with...

Sherlock will never stop being thankful for whatever had made him leave the instant the way was clear and not the next day like Molly had suggested to him. He does not want to contemplate what world he would have returned to if he had.

He takes Lestrade’s hand. “You have my thanks for both.”

They take leave of each other awkwardly at that point –Lestrade pointedly excusing himself to call the team and Mrs. Hudson back and Sherlock openly fleeing to room 2703 with John’s pyjama bottoms and t-shirt. He shouldn’t be surprised to find John alive and awake in his room but he is. What is more surprising is that John has detached himself from the monitors without raising an alarm and is halfway to sneaking out of his room. He would have succeeded if Sherlock had not arrived then, too. 

“What the hell are you doing?” Sherlock barks as quietly as he can and herds John back to his room. He shuts the door and grudgingly grants John his privacy as he changes.

“They were keeping you too long. I was worried something had happened.”

Sherlock whirls around. John is in the midst of putting his shirt on but Sherlock can see the bruising from his and Lestrade’s hands behind the gauze and tape. “I wasn’t the one who stopped breathing today.”

“You are the one who had to get me to start breathing again, though.”

“Lestrade helped.”

“I’ve already been told what happened. I was in the ambulance when you were given the report, remember?”

Sherlock in fact does not remember but he does not doubt John, who looks much more comfortable as he carefully gets himself back into bed. He reattaches the monitors and then turns the machines back on. No alarm. Sherlock leaves briefly to drag a chair in from the hallway and to steal a pillow from an empty stretcher. If John has to stay the night so will he. “You helped too,” he adds after they’re both as settled as they’re going to be. 

John is confused for a moment before it dawns on him. “Do I have my own room in the mind palace?”

Sherlock almost tells him that John is the reigning monarch of his mind palace but instead says he is everywhere. John looks very pleased with himself and Sherlock can’t help but be pleased as well. He likes John’s presence there. He much prefers John alive and beside him though. He does not want to live to see a day when the only John H. Watson that exists is the one in his head.

“At least when I say that I’ll never leave you it’s at least partly true.” John hisses softly as Sherlock flinches. “Bit Not Good?”

“More than bit, yes.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be.” _You came back so you don’t have to apologize for anything ever again._

They’re quiet together for a few moments before John speaks a promise and a confirmation in one sentence. “I’ll never leave you without a fight, Sherlock.”

“And you’re not going anywhere without being fought for.” It’s something that he really hadn’t meant to say aloud but it’s something John already knows. He’s been told that it’s nice for someone to have the obvious pointed out to them once in awhile so he allows this to not count as an error. What John had said had not been new to him either and it has eased him somewhat. His heart is getting in the way of his head tonight but he cannot call it a weakness right now.

John yawns. “It’s nearly two in the morning. I’m going to bed. Try and get some sleep too, will you? There’s no water left in my lungs so I will certainly wake up.”

**_I’ll never leave you without a fight_ **

Sherlock promises to try his best.

“Oh and Sherlock?”

“Yes?”

“Thank you.”

“Always, John.”


End file.
